page_title: Eßweiler
section_title: The Kolonie
hierarchical_section_title: Eßweiler / Culture and sightseeing / Buildings / The Kolonie
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die "Kolonie", eine Arbeitersiedlung auf dem Schneeweiderhof. Das Bild wurde etwa 1950 gemacht.
context_page_description: Eßweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
context_section_description: In the quarries on the Schneeweiderhof, sometimes up to 500 people were employed until the mid 20th century. They came from their homes in the surrounding villages to the mountain, and went back again each day, on foot, some of them walking five or six kilometres. Between 1922 and 1924, the quarry owners, Basalt AG, Linz am Rhein, built a workers’ settlement on the Schneeweiderhof out of basalt stones quarried on site. It is known locally as die Kolonie. The complex is made up of a three-floor main building and two wing buildings, which stand somewhat nearer the road. Through driveways with round arches, one reached the farms behind the complex, where there were goat pens and chicken coops. The complex's outer appearance has been largely preserved from how it originally looked. Many of the flats, however, are now empty.
caption: Former Schneeweiderhof workers’ colony monumental zone, as it appeared about 1950
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